DRAFT: Off-putting relationships: the essentials of child alienation. By Nick Child
December 2014
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Off-putting relationships: the essentials of child alienation
By Nick Child
No joke
Berger and Wyse’s custardy-battle cartoon is an exception that proves the rule. There is no room for humour
in the tribal warfare of high conflict family separations. No one would choose it if they could avoid it. Nor is it
fun for workers who ride the wild waters of family separation to help the families. Life jackets are essential.
This overview is an invitation to learn about a neglected but important field. The first half is an introduction
with case examples. The second half summarises essential general points and issues, a life jacket to keep
you afloat. I start with the benefits of describing a spectrum over defining a syndrome, and end with how
changing court practice might make the biggest difference.
Engaging with alienation
The word alienation by itself tends to alienate people. If we add capital letters, plus the pointed word
parental in front of it, and the static word syndrome after it, it becomes Parental Alienation Syndrome
(Gardner 1985). For sensitive British professionals this foreign label may cause severe allergic reactions. I
was one of them. We avoid such off-putting language and labels precisely to cut down any more alienation.
But please read on.
Some resistance to the word is valid. But we can explore and think that through rather than dismiss the
whole topic. We urgently do need to get over the allergy against what is now an important established
international field of study of one troublesome family pattern. Child and Parental Alienation has been
accepted in English case law now (Bellamy 2010) thanks to a few expert witnesses, past and present (Weir
2011; Cameron 2014; Woodall in press). We need to raise awareness more generally. We need to update
much of the present general literature, policy and guidance in UK family law, risk and child protection that
does not mention it at all, if these are to be a more authoritative basis for evidence, practice, research and
training. We need to wonder whether some of our intervention may be what’s making it worse. Less may be
more helpful.
Deceptively the core concern of Child and Parental Alienation is not for the parents even though they are
most vexed. It is that the children involved can suffer from serious emotional abuse and long-term harm. Our
collective professional involvement or ignorance is evidently failing families and their children. I want to raise
awareness for those as resistant as I was once. I have tried to identify off-putting allergens if not to remove
them. For example, the Child and Parental Alienation pattern is not fixed to gender, so that cannot be the
main premise for understanding it. Attachment-based understanding and proactive family court practices
may help more.
A spectrum of meanings
DRAFT: Off-putting relationships: the essentials of child alienation. By Nick Child
December 2014
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Resistance is eased if we set out a spectrum of meanings of the word alienation, ranging from ordinary
meanings of alienation with an ‘a’ to more defined forms of Alienation with an ‘A’ (Child 2014c). Even in an
ordinary passive sense, alienation by any other name would have to carry some off-putting qualities – for
example, negativity and finality. It wouldn’t be alienation if it didn’t last for a while. More specific descriptions
based on the many features of an active three-person situation give us more examples of Alienation. The
key feature is that one person turns a second person against a third without good reason. Child and Parental
Alienation is the most famous Alienation in its special context of high conflict separated families. Less
famous examples of Alienation might be: the familiar pattern of divided loyalties between spouse and inlaws; a grandmother forcing her daughter to have an abortion she didn’t want; someone having an affair with
a married person who leaves for the new partner.
The features definition of Alienation also describes the more specific hard-end version that we are concerned
with here. With our reservations about the terminology, it is mostly found under the heading Parental
Alienation. Gardner’s syndrome is still a useful checklist but most people now drop the ‘Syndrome’ tag and
choose more nuanced thinking. We also focus more on the child and on the one specific context of family
separation. Many now prefer the term Child Alienation (Kelly & Johnston 2001), or even more neutrally:
Children Who Resist Post-separation Parental Contact (Fidler et al 2013)
So our allergy is eased, and our work with all families better informed, if we consider the child- or parentfocused Alienation pattern to be instances at the hardest-end of a longer spectrum between ordinary
alienation and patterns of active three-party Alienation. For the present overview the term Child Alienation
will be used.
Evidence and literature for an emerging field cannot be robust, but the field is now substantial and collected
accessibly in recent textbooks (Fidler et al, 2013; Baker & Sauber 2013; Lorandos et al 2013) and in
webpages listed at the end. Unless otherwise stated, readers should refer to those sources. I will use the first
person form to indicate less evidenced thinking.
Definition of Child Alienation
A typical definition of Child Alienation is that it is a family pattern most strikingly (but not only) found in the
context of high conflict separations, where a child is shaped into totally rejecting the other parent and their
tribe, even though the child previously had, and could still have, a safe and valued relationship with them.
‘Shaped’ is my neutral word chosen to include a range of more or less intentional behaviour. ‘Tribe’ refers to
how side-taking grows and exacerbates it. Pure Child Alienation is rare. Uncertain professionals and lay
people immediately understand the concept when you explain that it is “when one parent turns their child
against the other without good reason”. Often people then say they know someone affected. Given greater
awareness, the pattern may not be so rare.
Typically, the child strongly rejects one parent on a flimsy basis – eg “s/he slammed doors, sent me to my
room”. Of course we need to look more carefully at what’s going on. Remembering that the professional
system may be what fans these embers into flames, in Child Alienation we find that what drives the child’s
rejection is the favoured parent, not the deficiencies of the rejected one. The favoured parent may be able
and convincing given their strong personality. But they may be overwhelmingly strong and needy,
Unsympathetic and negative labels are given to their personality in the literature, eg Narcissistic Personality
Disorder. Others give them complete sympathy – which is, of course, also what their child does as part of the
Alienation pattern. So this is the standard picture we have of Child Alienation.
The relationship spectrum
A more general spectrum of closeness or distance in families is familiar to professional and lay people alike.
People may say they’re very attached, loyal or close to a parent, or that they aren’t. Normal family
relationships fall along a spectrum of affinities, alignments and alliances. Child Alienation combines around
the child a pair of relationships at both extreme ends of that familiar spectrum of attachments gone further
awry than usual – one very close and one very distant (Kelly & Johnston 2001)
DRAFT: Off-putting relationships: the essentials of child alienation. By Nick Child
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Attachment-based approaches naturally make most sense of what’s happening (McIntosh 2011; Child,
2014b). Such deeply hurt and disturbed relationships are given space and amplification in more developed
countries by wider social factors and contexts. We don’t know international prevalence, but I think it makes
sense that, in Westernised cultures, where couples self-select each other and children are more exclusively
raised by their parents not by ‘a village’; where parental separation is common and family law the place for
disputes; where children’s experiences are highly valued and researched and the child’s view becomes the
deciding factor in courts; then attachment loss and hurt will more readily get magnified into patterns like Child
Alienation.
The tug of war and love
The simplistic image of a tug of war is often used of high conflict family separation as a tug of love with the
child in the middle. In courts, the child’s voice may decide the winner. This image certainly fits the pattern of
escalating layers of adversarial adults on each side – of family, friends, teachers, counsellors, therapists and
other professionals, of family lawyers, courts, and beyond them, organisations, government and academic
discourse (Child 2014a). The image fits the picture of the child’s real needs being ignored – indeed of a child
being stressed and torn apart by the well-meaning but conflicted adults on all sides. And it makes it no
surprise when the child, like everyone else, cannot stand the strain and opts to cling to one parent, dropping
the other one.
Where the child’s side-taking happens without good past or present reason to drop the other side, that
approximates to Child Alienation. About nine out of ten separating families are reckoned to sort something
out collaboratively without a tug of love perpetrated on the children. About one in ten are more enduring high
conflict separations that come to family courts. Pure Child Alienation is perhaps one in ten of the court cases
– that’s one in a hundred of all separations. As we’ve noted, this may be an underestimate because we
haven’t known how to look for it.
Given the tug of war image, the surprising question is why Child Alienation can be so rare. Children must
have considerable tenacity in holding on to their strained relationships with both conflicted parents. The one
thing everyone knows is that children do not want to choose between their parents (Baker & Andre 2009).
Those who promote the child’s voice so much in family courts must have forgotten this principle. The tug of
war image does not fit where it implies that both parents are equally un-collaborative. It takes only one
actively un-collaborative parent to create high conflict. In Child Alienation it is clear that one parent does a lot
more than just fail to collaborate with the other parent. The courts are supposed to prevent this undue
isolation of the child from a parent but what they actually do can sanction it.
Children who resist contact
Taking all children who resist post-separation contact with a parent, the usual view now is that each complex
multifactorial situation needs to be assessed fully and in its own right (Kelly & Johnston 2001). The key is to
distinguish Justified Rejection from Child Alienation depending on what good reason there is or is not for
limiting contact. Many cases are a mixture of both of those – that is, they’re Hybrid. Notably children who are
justified in rejecting a parent may be genuinely anxious but often also wish for some (safe) contact. This
contrasts with Alienated children who can be unambiguous in their hate and rejection when there is less or
no good reason for it.
This reminds us that children wish for and benefit from a relationship with both their parents even when
special measures are needed to make it safe. A common assumption is that risk means children should
never again have any contact with that parent. This simplistic approach to safe contact does not attend
properly to children’s best interests, nor to the actual family relationships or hopes for them that endure far
longer than passing high-minded professionals do. For Child Alienation in particular, the evidence and
anecdotes show that it has more seriously harmful effects in the short and long term than mere lack of
contact does. Roche (2014) tells a harrowing transatlantic story of her sons’ alienation leading within weeks
to quite new disturbances in the younger one. No legal or mental health professional explored the most basic
question: What was happening when it started? Yet major mental health diagnoses, treatments and invoices
were not in such short supply.
DRAFT: Off-putting relationships: the essentials of child alienation. By Nick Child
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Two case stories bring the picture to life. Anecdotes are what become statistics – ‘anecdote is the singular of
data’ (De Lillo, 1997). An overview of an international field means the cases have an international context.
This is not to imply a right way to work. Any way of working needs local adaptation. For videos and other
online case stories and resources, see websites at the end.
Grown-up alienated children look back
Box 1 is an edited snippet of quotes from a longer video of adults looking back on their abduction and
alienation as children (PACT 2012). Abduction is a quick way to alienate children, but the parent still has to
keep working on them. The excerpts focus on the experience of how alienation happens, and the long-term
effects. Amy Baker (2007) provides more systematic research on adults looking back on Alienation.
Box 1: Excerpts from video of alienated children grown up (PACT 2012)
Cecilie: … The sheer mental torture that I went through as a kid, the fear, and now looking back
seeing that I was manipulated by my Dad in the way that I was for his own interests, I mean, this is
pure child abuse. ... We travelled around for ten years – the most we stayed in one place was maybe
six months if that long. I couldn't talk about my mother at all with my father during any of that time.
Basically he'd just freeze up or get very angry or do something kind of scary like throw something on
the floor or just get really really really angry, and really tense. So I couldn't say the M word, that was
Mom, mother, I couldn't bring it up, and it was frightening. It reinforced her scariness to me, or it felt
that she was the cause of that fear, it was her fault that my father would get angry and withdrawn. So
it wasn't his fault it became her fault in my mind. ... I think back to that little kid and I feel so much pain.
Even the fact that I had had one perception of my father and his role in my life and how selfless he'd
been and for years how he'd put his child first and he did all this for my sake to protect me from this
terrible mother. And then when all that started changing it really screwed with my whole outlook on life
and my own trust in my own perceptions on life. ... It led to a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, trouble
sleeping, nightmares sometimes … It's caused a tremendous amount of upheaval and pain.
Thomas: ... My mother dished out a 20 year sentence to my father, one that had consequences for all
of us. And I think now that she's maybe realising that the consequences of her actions are
inescapable. Although I'm in contact with my father, basically he still is a stranger. And I've cut off all
contact with my mother.
Working with a child and family
Box 3 is an adapted version of a case described by Weitzman (2013) in a book that describes other
approaches too (Baker & Sauber 2013). The focus is on using a one-way mirror, but it neatly shows most of
the other key points and issues in working with Child Alienation. Box 2 is the genogram with agencies listed.
Note the number of agencies involved and compare with their equivalents in the UK or elsewhere. It doesn’t
say who paid for them all. At least the agencies were aware of Child Alienation and did something
appropriate with it. In the UK most agencies are unaware and therefore do something wrong with it.
Box 2: A Child Alienation Case (USA) – Genogram
DRAFT: Off-putting relationships: the essentials of child alienation. By Nick Child
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Box 3: A Child Alienation Case (USA) – Edward / Eduardo (from Weitzman 2013)
From the time their son, now five, was born Robert and Maria, both in their 30s, have been in high
conflict. She is Hispanic; he is Caucasian. They met and married in the army. They never agreed on
their son’s name nor what language to speak to him. They split up when he was one. At first neither
parent sought a legal divorce or filed for custody.
For two years Robert agreed to Maria’s terms because he loved her and wanted her back. To avoid
conflict, he accepted her demands and unreliable plans over contact. He was very invested in
Edward’s welfare and took good care of him. Transitions were difficult.
When Eduardo was three, Maria decided to move. She said the army ordered a transfer but couldn’t
find the letter later in court. She had another partner now who would go with them. Realising his fate,
Robert filed a motion to prevent Maria from taking Edward. He was an involved parent and wanted
50:50 custody. She wanted 100%. He detailed the many conflicts but did not criticise her parenting.
She said he was an uninvolved and poor carer and used the transitions as evidence. She denigrated
his family.
The court denied sole custody. During the three months assessment, conflict escalated. Maria
insisted on having police stand-by at each change-over, ramping up allegations that Robert was
causing conflict. Robert recorded each hand-over as proof that he was not.
The family court assessor gave 50:50 custody in alternating periods of three weeks. But on the first
return to Robert, Eduardo was unwilling to leave Maria at the airport. Robert carried Edward
protesting. Maria called security to help prevent him going. The officer read the custody order and let
Robert carry on. Maria followed yelling to Eduardo in Spanish how mean Robert was.
Edward took a few days to calm down and cheer up. But he refused to call Robert ‘Dad’,
mechanically saying “I don’t love you” to him and that he had another father now.
DRAFT: Off-putting relationships: the essentials of child alienation. By Nick Child
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Maria refused to allow the next visit and alleged abuse because of bruises on Eduardo’s leg. Robert
said they were from playing. Her lawyer filed for supervised visits. His lawyer got orders for phone
calls and an assessment for alienation. This took five months with little other contact. Five months.
Maria interfered with the phone calls too. Maria became pregnant. [For the exercise in Box 4, note
where your sympathies lie at this point.]
Child protection confirmed there was no abuse. Maria insisted Eduardo was too frightened to see
Robert at the hearing. The assessor said alienation was present and proposed a reunification plan.
This was accepted under threat of Maria’s custody being lost otherwise.
As planned, the maternal grandmother brought Eduardo from her house to the family court site for
reunification. He was anxious but very curious about the one-way mirror set-up. When he saw his
father from behind the mirror, he asked: “Who is that man? I don’t like him. He is a mean man.” At
first he refused to be in the same room, but then became interested in the toys Robert had brought
for him. Edward was soon in there playing with his father. Eduardo’s fears subsided after the second
session.
The inner circle of professionals decided they would not alter the time-share, but Maria was ordered
to have help from an expert in alienation. A guardian ad litem plus phone and other access orders
were added, delineating consequences of further alienation including possible loss of custody.
Changing custody was thought premature, plus mother’s supervised visits would probably have
disturbed Edward.
With constant monitoring, Edward continues a good relationship with Robert. But a relapse threatens
now as pressure mounts about where the child will live when school starts soon
The most recognised common factor in enduring high conflict separation is long delay in the legal processes
and assessments. During this time, the lack of contact means that absence only makes the hate grow
stronger. Whatever Alienation may have started, the months or years apart allow it to build up to become
irreversibly entrenched. To clarify what being child-focused means in these situations where the adults’
distress is so compelling, Box 4 is an exercise based on the Edward/o case.
Box 4: Five months with no contact: An exercise
At the point in the Edward/o case story where the court process meant his father had almost no contact
for five months, who were your sympathies with?
 Was it Robert – missing his much loved son, falsely accused of abuse, worrying about the court
case, maybe losing it with no contact forever? These are fair reasons to sympathise with Robert,
but are they self-centred or child-centred reasons?
 Or were you sympathising with Maria – also worrying about the courts, supporting Eduardo’s
obvious dislike of his father, maybe losing full custody even. She would say her worry was childcentred. Or maybe she would just be nervously pleased with the legal progress?
 Or did you sympathise with Edward, missing his dad? Well Eduardo might be worried but he
would say he was happy without contact – that Dad’s a bad man, ‘the cops’ are after him; and
now there are no nasty handovers, Mama is keeping him safe.
 Maybe you were relieved for all of them – a break from court appearances and stormy
transitions? And anyway, you might think in gendered generalisations, that Eduardo is with his
mother where a young child should be – and better that he stay with her when he goes to
school?
 A systemic approach would be to be interested in all these points of view – and more – in the
hope that the multiple views will promote understanding, provide options, and help everyone go
forward. How far is that possible where the context and participants are not collaborative? Or
where courts need clear assessment and direction, not lots of options?
DRAFT: Off-putting relationships: the essentials of child alienation. By Nick Child
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If it was just a matter of counting the votes, the child-focus exercise in Box 4 might add up to leaving Robert
out, until we recall what Cecilie and Thomas said looking back on their experiences of similar situations (Box
1) – how they experienced being conned by one parent and turned against the other, about the stress and
emotions at the time, and the life-long emotional damage they suffered as a result. So a thorough child-focus
will come to a different conclusion. Children’s views need to be taken seriously but understood in context.
They are the centre of concern, but their immature wishes and feelings and factors that influence them
require careful mature assessment by responsible child-centred adults before decisions are made.
The bad and good of a long-term child-focus
Research on anything covert can only reach partial conclusions. But it is clear that, at least sometimes,
things are as bad as this, that we always need to take it this seriously: Child Alienation can be the long-term
soul-destruction of a child despite claims to be happy just now as a hostage in a well-meant but exclusive
coercive attachment, required by and in support of the overwhelmingly strong and needy ‘love’ of the one
parent who should be the child’s carer, not dependent on their child’s response to their needs.
Now, no child chooses their upbringing, so in a way children are always coerced into what their family and
culture imposes. But that’s ok because it is done in love and good faith – love for individuality, love that
endures even through rebellious phases. Ignorant of other truths, Alienated children may live their lives like
the rest do. We don’t know. But Child Alienation can be a matter of coerced love and bad faith despite the
child’s firm assurances. At least when the truth comes out, this can add up to emotional abuse with long-term
harm (Box 1). Put like that the possibility means that this is not just a case for therapeutic reflection, but for a
different kind of system intervention and child protection, as we do with other child abuse. The abuse of the
power differentials in the family has crossed the threshold of tolerability. Once, hidden abuses like baby
battering and child sexual abuse were met with disbelief: “How could any parent do such a thing?” So the
facts had to be underlined to get them believed and acted on. Maybe this is the same just now with Child
Alienation.
The good news is that high conflict and Child Alienation is not so hidden. It usually happens in full public
view in family courts. And for now the abuse mostly gets public and legal sanction there. In which case this
abuse may not be a parent’s doing so much as the result of what the wider and legal system does that
encourages and perpetuates it. We may need only to spot this pattern, and stop supporting it. That’s
nothing very complicated. It should be easy especially since the courts themselves know they have lost the
plot (Munby 2004; Reed 2012). Huge systems and numbers of professionals and their incomes are
dependent on keeping the present system going. But there will continue to be ongoing and difficult high
conflict cases to manage. So there may not be too many redundant lawyers, judges and allied professions.
Meanwhile for the family
For rejected parents, like Robert, note that their distress may contain parentally responsible concern for their
children’s welfare at the time and into the future. In that case, a court needs to listen closely to them. Even
when a rejected parent is self-centred, it may remind us to look equally closely for a possible deeper
unhappy truth inside the happy-looking unit with the favoured parent. If the court misses the point of what is
going on, and especially if they side-line and denigrate the rejected parent – the parent who may be most on
the ball – then this is not just injustice for the rejected parent, but a failure of the whole paramount duty of the
family court for the welfare of the child. Imagine too the far worse plight of those parents who have been shut
out without good reason for many longer years from responsibly caring for their disappeared and at risk
children.
On the other hand, let’s not pillory favoured parents. They are just as troubled people and parents. They may
fervently mean well too. They may not be able to help much of what they are doing. It is the courts
supporting them that builds problems. Courts can and should be more responsible. The key is to remember
what an older Edward/o would say: “I had to say those things for Mama [the favoured parent]; and my Dad
[the rejected parent] should’ve known I didn’t mean it.” (Baker 2007)
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So far we have introduced off-putting relationships and Child Alienation within a spectrum of high conflict
family separation. Case examples bring to life the issues at work. We see how layers of adults on all sides
amplify enduring high conflict and Child Alienation and family courts then sanction it. We see how this can be
seriously harmful to the children. The rest of the paper summarises the field in all its essential general points
– a life jacket to stay afloat in wild waters. Some of this applies to the wider group of high conflict and
ordinary separation, while some just to Child Alienation.
Before getting to court
Enduring high conflict generally means that family courts get involved and things may escalate there rather
than resolve. Obviously anything that constructively prevents that is to be encouraged. Throughout all
phases of the process, where many of the adults involved get so angry and upset and prioritise conflict and
take sides, we have seen how important it is to keep a child-focus instead. Rather cruelly we set aside the
parents’ own suffering – or rather, we use it as a pointer to help attend better to their children’s suffering and
needs. The exercise in Box 4 explored more of what child-focused thinking means.
The child’s welfare is supposed to be paramount anyway. A child-focus keeps workers balanced and
principled. While a parent in conflict may object to any priority given to the other parent, no parent can
complain if their child’s welfare gets greater priority than their own. When it gets to courts, though, we see
how courts fumble their paramount duty. And that then makes it very hard for anyone else to promote it.
Research confirms that children mostly want a relationship with both their parents. Perhaps if both parents
got more equally involved with their children before separating, then separation might be less likely or at
least made easier for all. Even when a separated parent has behaved badly, children will usually want to
repair some connection with them. This is what makes Child Alienation so remarkable an exception to this
rule – the degree of expressed rejection and without good reason.
Most parents do prioritise their children’s need for a relationship with both of them. Where they do not it is
hard for others not to side with one parent against the other. Professionals too, when they meet a client in
this situation, struggle to balance the need to hear and support the individual client’s story at the same time
as leaving room for the other parent’s perspective as well as to consider the children’s position and needs.
When parents cannot or do not prioritise the children, they may be dead set against any collaboration.
Family mediation is now firmly recommended, but that still requires a degree of motivation that one or both
parents in conflict may not have. Nor may they want therapy or counselling which are also based on
voluntary collaboration ... and may anyway sound like they are about getting back together.
Of course, children play their part in the complexity too (Kelly & Johnston 2001). For example, they may
resist taking sides between their parents, or if they’re naturally affiliated or not resilient, they give in to one.
Transitions or handovers can be the biggest challenge for children. Transitions are a special study on their
own. Difficult handovers are a reason to sort things out. They are not on their own evidence of bad
relationships with a parent on either side. They are the visible peak of failed collaboration and planning for
children. With adversarial courts in mind, both sides are watching for trouble which each may attribute to the
other. This creates intense pressure and blame across the no-man’s land a child has to cross. If you watch
the children, you can see how they gear up for the change over. Better transitions take meticulous care and
planning. Parents and others can help make the transition work better for the children – whatever other
conflicts rage in the background.
To not collaborate either means that one or both parents are not prioritising their children’s welfare, and / or it
means that the legal and other processes are failing or are very slow. Whoever is responsible, enduring high
conflict separation and Child Alienation are emotional abuse of the children. I’ll repeat that because it is
seldom said: Enduring high conflict and Child Alienation are inherently emotional abuse of the children
because their welfare is not given priority. Instead of accepting this, in my experience we cross our fingers,
clutch encouraging research results, and fondly hope that any high conflict is somehow just between the
parents and doesn’t affect the children. We fall back on a by-stander’s rationale (Cohen 2000): We cannot
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do more anyway since the family courts are the highest authority and they must know best. Yet we noted
how even the judges themselves have declared these hopes to be mistaken.
If one or both parents don’t or can’t put their children first on their own, then early prevention is key. Often
the ignorant advice is to “give it time”. This is exactly the wrong advice in high conflict separations. More
parents can do better given a firm push to go and get help to collaborate, eg from family mediation. That is
worth encouraging, but it still won’t work if even one of the parents is not interested. The basic aim in these
early stages is to prevent undue isolation of a child from one of their parents. The delay can add up to
lengthy isolation.
Whatever your profession, your agency or your interest and skills, you may not be the best person or agency
for a particular family. If you are unaware of Child Alienation, and if you find it hard to manage that difficult
side-taking issue, then you are definitely not good for these cases.
Generally lawyers are bound to advocate for their own client only. So adversarial legal systems and courts
are the norm and escalate family conflict. In the 1990s, Australia invested heavily in alternatives to lawyers
and courts. But collaboratively minded family lawyers may be the best agencies for many conflicted parents.
Two lawyers can advocate and support their own client and also negotiate sensibly with each other to guide
and advise their clients toward a better compromise instead of going to court. Paying more for this can help
motivate parents to get it sorted out. But it also means one law for the rich and another for the poor (and their
children). More sophisticated collaborative divorce services can be even more effective but at a further shortterm cost (Denny 2011). The progressive cutting of legal aid and public funding for even what there was, let
alone for new developments, means that realistically we should welcome any radical effective and cheap
options rather than dream about expensive ideals – especially if the cheap ones work better.
If and when we do accept that emotional abuse is a valid concern in enduring high conflict separations of all
kinds, obvious other steps will follow bringing in appropriate other agencies and other approaches. In
Scotland, the unique Children’s Hearing system could come into play, being separate from the adult courts.
These other agencies will need to learn and prepare better for this particular kind of abuse. And, incidentally,
if we can think of hard-end Alienation as part of a negative category – abuse – its negative connotations
become as normal. When these challenging ideas are acknowledged more widely, we will be surprised that
we didn’t think them before.
Courts
Custom and practice in the UK courts is slowly learning from elsewhere. Traditionally, the judge is an
observer of an adversarial process before determining an outcome. But family courts are usually not judging
facts and guilt like other courts do. Instead they need to avoid doing what fans the flames, and they need to
grasp the case and proactively lead the task at hand. A key aim is to ensure that children do not get unduly
isolated with one parent for any length of time. The guidelines some courts use (eg Pinella 2014; JofEW
2014) can only be a part of a complete proactive approach. These help courts to set non-adversarial
expectations for parents and their advisors, before moving on to ask the right people the right questions,
require prompt assessments where necessary, and take charge of setting aims and timetables for the work
to be done and reported back on.
While we have clear evidence of what doesn’t work in courts, we don’t yet have evidence on what does. It
makes sense to stop doing what doesn’t work, try out other ways, and to collect evidence on them. Given
that key factors may be iatrogenic – caused by the treatment – refining more minimal intervention may help
best.
For those cases that do persist, good practice elsewhere is for courts to ‘hold hands’ more with the other
agencies involved. In the UK, even if judges directed it, family mediation and therapy have few ways to
report back or collaborate with what the courts might want for the families. Mediators and therapists in the
UK could gear up to a more powerful version of the role of ‘parenting coordinator’. This is a USA-grown
blend of roles and skills backed by a degree of legal authority and reporting back to the courts (see
parentingcoordinationcentral.com).
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The opportunity for Child Alienation has grown during the decades that the child’s voice has become highly
profiled once parents take their conflict to courts – courts where there isn’t enough awareness, assessment
or resourcing. I think it is obvious how this factor works: If the child is going to be the deciding witness, the
one to declare who has won the tug of love, then one or both parents and their tribes will inevitably put huge
intentional or unintended pressure on the child in the middle to say the right things. When things do go tribal,
whole family sides can be recruited in or blocked out of this. New partners and wider once-loved extended
family can be cut out of a child’s life to the consternation of all of them. The two sides get amplified in stereo
while the child is just a mono-speaker in the middle.
Clearly, when the child’s voice is assessed for family courts, that has to be done well or else abuse may be
promoted not prevented. Unlike most other countries, Australia invested in a sophisticated approach to
working with the child’s voice as gathered and fed back to the parents out of court with the guidance of
several skilled workers. That was specifically to limit the courts from defaulting their decisions onto the child’s
voice. Less careful practice elsewhere unwittingly leaves this stressful responsibility to the children. The task
may be given no more than an unqualified or time-constrained officer’s brief meeting with the child (Amey
2014) or, even worse, getting someone to help them to fill in a proforma (Scottish Courts 2014).
Assessment plainly requires considerable skill, experience, care and application to the task (Bishop 2014).
Assessing must not be skimped or done by someone who is unaware of risk assessment or of Child
Alienation (Weir 2011). Professional assessors need skill and qualification in non-presumptive information
gathering and interviewing of all the parties involved in the case, in understanding the overall family and
context, and understanding children’s behaviour and development (Miller 2013).
In all UK legislatures, the existing laws and family courts could work well enough simply by becoming more
aware, by improved functioning, and by building up the case law. That is, there is no need for any new laws
to be made about Child Alienation. It is all there now, ready and waiting for a change of custom and practice.
Present court custom is what can set endless legal proceedings going: A child welfare hearing is not a trial.
Though in conflict, both parents are presumed to be safe and responsible carers. But often a resident parent
– mother or father – may come to court having unwittingly used their position and influence with the children
to make unilateral decisions about contact patterns. The court then (correctly) accepts without question the
resident parent’s motives, safety and qualities but proceeds (incorrectly) to use them as grounds for treating
the other parent differently, as if they do need that kind of questioning. In effect the hearing becomes a ‘trial’
of an implicitly ‘guilty’ non-resident parent who has to prove their innocence and worth in a covert unfair
process that was never meant to be a trial or proof of anything. This parody of a trial may only end its run
when the child leaves childhood (Munby 2004). The Red Queen’s court in Alice in Wonderland, and the tale
of the Emperor’s New Clothes, come to mind. But those are fables. Family courts perform like this
everywhere and repeatedly. A simple change in court custom could make the process work better.
Of course, real risks may be part of any high conflict separation and serious allegations made in Child
Alienation too. We need to take all allegations seriously to find out reliably but promptly where they are valid
– Justified Rejection – from where they are not. Remember that many cases are mixed or Hybrid situations
and are more complicated to assess and manage. The allegations made in pure Child Alienation situations
will by definition be trite or false, perhaps matters of ordinary parenting. Yet somehow they often sound
immediately compelling and believably serious. We have seen how important it is to be aware, assess and
distinguish the different underlying situations for any children resisting contact with a parent. We have seen
how any long delays in legal processes can be fatal to important relationships. Where there are some
sanctions for making plainly fabricated false allegations, less harmful time and expense is wasted in dealing
with them.
Outside of the courts
Given that syndromes and negative terminology are going to escalate conflict, it is important that we try to
reduce our own professional excesses. We need a word for alienation, and common usage means that’s the
one – adding some moderation too. But we can do better than labels like Narcissistic Personality Disorder to
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understand and work with a parent ... remembering that the child also has to constantly and even more
closely ‘work with’ the same parent.
Many people are developing ways that work. We know some of the principles of what works. But there are
few reliably evidenced answers anywhere yet for how best to prevent and treat Child Alienation cases. So
we need to keep trying. A reason for this immature knowledge is that high conflict and Child Alienation are
complex covert multi-factorial situations where multidisciplinary and multiagency research and projects are
hard to establish. Notable exceptions to this are the leading team in Canada (Fidler et al 2013), and the USbased Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and their unique journal, Family Court Review (see
www.afccnet.org).
Child Alienation can happen with any genders of parent or child including same sex parents. This is
important to note because some detractors – who must have limited reading and experience – wrongly
presume that Alienation only happens with one gendered pattern, ie resident mothers and suspect nonresident fathers. However, the experience of being Alienated will be different for mothers and fathers given
the greater gendered importance society gives to mothers looking after their children.
In any Child Alienation case the favoured parent may behave with different amounts of unconscious
emotionality and / or conscious strategy. In any case, it is a real and key puzzle to know how to engage the
favoured parents. It is hard to know what to make of and what to do with their side of things. A first step is to
stop calling them such nasty names. The literature suggests (eg Rappoport 2005) that such people are
deeply and privately negative about themselves and their lovability, only able to sustain relationships in
subtly or openly coercive ways, and very scared of being found out. In other words, they need great
understanding, find the prospect of help very scary, and so they work very hard to avoid it.
Finally, there is a natural aversion to the most drastic step that courts can take: reversing custody. In fact,
evidence shows that, when properly assessed and skillfully executed, children quickly get over their
Alienation and soon show clear benefits from the new family arrangements (Fidler et al 2013; Warshak
2010). If that is so, then maybe we should be keener to do it sooner in some cases. A change like that
includes the expectation that the new residential parent can support a better relationship with both parents. A
danger for the child when custody is transferred is that the previously favoured parent may give up and cut
off. So the child still has only one relationship with a loved parent – but at least it is the healthier one.
Why study Child Alienation?
The reasons for learning about Child Alienation are clear. Pure Child Alienation may be rare, but it has
distinct features and may be enduringly serious for a child. It is in the category of emotional abuse with
potential life-long consequences. There can be no ignoring it – though that is what we’ve done. It is also
hugely expensive of time and money for courts and for professionals involved. We must find more effective
solutions.
If you’re involved with separated families at all, you need to learn about it. If you don’t know about it, or if you
deny that this pattern happens with its harmful consequences, you should not be working with any separated
families with children.
It is also important to name this pattern because it is a huge relief and guidance for clients when they find
that the Child Alienation idea fits their otherwise endless puzzling nightmare. It is important though to ensure
that the new terminology and information does not get misunderstood as yet more ammunition to use in
escalating conflict further.
If we spot and stop what the system does to make it worse, and if we all learn to spot and stop Child
Alienation early, then paradoxically there will be a lot less need to start talking about it in those terms at all.
Professionals need to learn when to use the language of Alienation and when to avoid using it. By learning
about Child Alienation, we incidentally also learn a great deal about the full range of family separation and
conflict.
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The good news is that this is one serious concern that will be much cheaper to solve than it is to continue.
The most important step might be to refine a more minimal intervention. Where multifactorial work and
collaborative integrative approaches across agencies are indicated, those agencies need to get together
more. The present literature and policy guidance authoritatively sustains our ignorance, so it all needs
essential updating.
Work with partial families
While we wait for more systemic changes, and with awareness and care for the risks, there is a place for
working with just one part of affected families. For all of these we need to make all our services and
ourselves more aware and welcoming of this clientele. We need to be ready for all ages and stages and
situations of Alienated children, their fathers, their mothers – rejected or favoured – and their wider family
members and workers. We need to understand how to give other agencies their essential place. Evidence is
needed to shape what works best.
1. Ordinary therapeutic support and validation: Where professionals remain unaware and other
experienced help is not yet available to refer to, it may still be helpful for client and professional to
work on their shared ignorance together as long as they have open minds for that shared learning.
At least we should not dismiss referrals through prejudiced assumptions about the pattern’s
invalidity. I almost did that but my client got me to share the learning – QED.
2. As long as others are attending to the serious aspects and decisions, and as long as therapists are
aware of Alienation, then therapists of all kinds can help a client understand the wider situation and
help them find their way through it, or just to cope better. It is important to note that even the quietest
nicest therapists who are not aware of Child Alienation are unwittingly liable to make the situation
worse for the children just by adding to the undue side-taking.
3. Specific experienced long-term work with those in established Alienated families: For example,
helping the rejected parent cope with continuing Alienation (Gower 2014), or to do the best things
during his or her exile to ensure that the child’s hoped-for eventual return will go well. There may be
ways to engage both sides, and to help increase the chances of the children thinking for themselves
sooner (Baker 2007).
Work with fuller systems
Given that high conflict separation is a troubled failure of an attempted happier family unit or its collaborative
separation, and as long as we do not make it worse, workers in effect aim to hold the circle together,
especially for the children’s sake. That means that wider agencies need to find ways to integrate their efforts
around the families.
1. More robust and effective re/unification work for children in Alienated and high conflict families, preand post- court. One example of this kind of work was the reunification case earlier. Other examples
are in Baker & Sauber (2013) and Warshak (2010). In the UK, Woodall (2014) and the Family
Separation Clinic use a principled and persuasive integrative whole family system approach to
ensure that children have a relationship with both their parents. Others are developing other ways
too (Chimera 2014; Whitcombe 2014). There is certainly a great need in the UK for more aware and
qualified expert witnesses for court-linked work.
2. Big systems work looks for ways that courts and wider systems can help: This wider approach
requires some quality thinking, effective discussion and learning with other agencies involved, and
key consultation about how to make things work better. Since the UK involves separate national
legal systems and smaller legislative areas, each area needs to find its own family court solutions.
Any way that family courts can become more aware, efficient, proactive, and teamed up, will help.
Good examples of this in the USA and UK have been mentioned where all parents and their
advisors are routinely provided with clear guidelines as part of proactive practice.
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Another useful and simple change of practice would stop family courts looking like the Red Queen’s.
Remember here the non-resident parent can sometimes be the mother. The resident parent’s
advocate would be required to open proceedings by leading their case for any significant limiting of
the child’s contact. Serious allegations offered would naturally be robustly pursued. Otherwise
contact orders would be firmly sustained and isolation if not Alienation prevented (Mackay 2014).
Determined support and guidance from family mediators, parenting coordinators and others might
help the family with what they struggle to do on their own. But at least it is taken out of court.
3. Better services, policy, literature and information for services and in general about separated families
and risk: For example, Baker & Andre (2009) provide information and programs for children in
schools. The more that all families and workers know in advance, the more these troubled patterns
can be watched out for and prevented. In some countries, eg Sweden, shared care after separation
is a standard cultural expectation. Elsewhere this too is a matter for new shared learning and
development for all of those involved. Urgent updating is needed for all relevant literature and policy
guidance, as well as public information. Any document that does not attend to issues raised by Child
Alienation cannot be considered an authoritative source.
Conclusion
In this overview my aim has been to raise awareness in the UK and elsewhere for an important, previously
ignored, international field, Child and Parental Alienation. To ease resistance to the terminology I broadened
the spectrum of meanings of alienation. Key sections that have been covered include: definition, case
examples, a child-focus exercise, key issues before during and after courts, reasons to study it, and ways to
work with and prevent it. What doesn’t work is more evident than what does work. We need good evidence
for what works. The exciting prospect is that refining minimal interventions may make most difference. This
can only have been a sketchy overview. Luckily recent textbooks collate fuller accounts (Fidler et al 2013;
Baker & Sauber 2013; Lorandos et al 2013). Another lively resource for all those interested is the blog:
http://thealienationexperience.org.uk
References
Amey, K. (2014) On Being a Guardian. Presented at AFT London Event on Parental Alienation. Retrieved
21/12/14 http://tinyurl.com/KevinAmey
Baker, A. J. (2007) Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Norton: New York
Baker, A. J. & Andre K. (2009) I Don’t Want to Choose. Kindred Spirits: New York. (Also a school program.)
Baker, A. J. & Sauber, S.R. (2013) Working with Alienated Children and Families: A Clinical Guidebook. New
York: Routledge
Bellamy, HHJ (2010) [2010] EWHC B19 (Fam) Family Law Week. Retrieved 21/12/14:
http://tinyurl.com/BellamyPA
Bishop, P. (2014) Ascertaining Children’s Wishes and Feelings. Family Law Week. Retrieved 31/12/14:
http://tinyurl.com/PaulBishop
Cameron, H. (2014) Aide memoire themes for mental health professionals. Presented at AFT London Event
on Parental Alienation. Retrieved 21/12/14 http://tinyurl.com/HamishCameronPA
Child, N. (2014a) Children Resisting Contact. Retrieved 21/12/14: http://www.forallthat.com
Child, N. (2014b) Keeping one eye on family abuse is not enough. Context, 134, pp 2-5.
Child, N. (2014c) Not sure about? Retrieved 21/12/14: http://thealienationexperience.org.uk
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Chimera, C. (2014) Working with Parental Alienation. Presented at AFT London Event on Parental
Alienation. Retrieved 21/12/14: http://tinyurl.com/ChipChimera
Cohen, S. (2000) States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering. Blackwell: Oxford
Denny, N. (2011) The Collaborative Law Companion. Jordans: London
De Lillo, D. (1997) Underworld. (quote attributed to Lenny Bruce, p 544). Gale: NY
Fidler, B. J, Bala, N. & Saini, M. A. (2013) Children Who Resist Post-Separation Parental Contact: A
Differential Approach for Legal and Mental Health Professionals. Oxford UP.
Gardner, R.A. (1985). Recent trends in divorce and custody litigation. Academy Forum, 29 (2), 3-7.
Gower, M (2014) A Thousand Tiny Poisonous Needles. Presented at AFT London Event on Parental
Alienation. Downloaded 20/12/14 http://tinyurl.com/MyrnaGower
Justiciary of England and Wales (JofEW) (2014) Midlands Region: What the Family Courts expect of
Parents. Retrieved 21/12/14: http://tinyurl.com/MidlandsCourt
Kelly, J. B. & Johnston, J. R. (2001) The Alienated Child: A Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome.
Family Court Review, 39: 249–266.
Lorandos, D, Bernet W., & Sauber, R. (eds) (2013) Parental Alienation: The Handbook for Mental Health and
Legal Professionals (Behavioral Science and Law) Charles Thomas Publishers.
Mackay, R. (2014) On State Intervention. Presented at AFT London Event on Parental Alienation. Retrieved
21/12/14: http://tinyurl.com/RoyMackay
McIntosh, J. E. (ed) (2011), Special Issue: Attachment Theory, Separation and Divorce: Forging Coherent
Understandings for Family Law. Family Court Review, 49, 3.
Miller, S. G. (2013) Clinical reasoning and decision-making in cases of child alignment: diagnostic and
therapeutic issues. In (eds) Baker, A. J. and Sauber, S.R. (2013) Working with Alienated Children and
Families: A Clinical Guidebook. New York: Routledge
Munby HMJ (2004) Management of intractable contact cases. FvM [2004] EWHC 727 (Fam) Family Law
Week. Retrieved 21/12/14: http://tinyurl.com/Munby2004
Parents and Abducted Children Together (PACT) (2012) Victims of Another War. Documentary video:
http://youtu.be/9z-Tfs2C3hU Also see: http://www.pact-online.org
Pinella County, Florida (2014) Notice for Family Law Cases with Minor Children. Retrieved 21/12/14:
http://tinyurl.com/FloridaCourt
Rappoport, A. (2005) Co-narcissism: How we accommodate to narcissistic parents. The Therapist ‘in press’.
Retrieved 21/12/14 http://tinyurl.com/RappoportA
Reed (2012) B v G [2012] UKSC 21 In: Changing the Culture: The Challenge of B v G. Retrieved 21/12/14:
http://tinyurl.com/ScotBvG
Roche, P. & Allen, M. (2014) Broken Lives Broken Minds Amazon: UK
Scottish Courts (2014) Form F9 - Intimation in an action which includes a crave for a section 11 order.
Retrieved 21/12/14: http://tinyurl.com/ScotCourts
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Warshak, R. (2010) Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing
Harper: New York
Weir, K. (2011) Intractable contact disputes: the extreme unreliability of children’s ascertainable wishes and
feelings. Family Court Journal, 2 (1), 1-8.
Weitzman, J. (2013) Reunification and the One Way Mirror. Chapter 10 in Amy Baker & Richard Sauber
Working with Alienated Children and Families: A Clinical Guidebook. New York: Routledge.
Whitcombe, S. (2014) Parental alienation: time to notice, time to intervene.The Psychologist, 27 (1), 31-32
Woodall, K. (In Press) Understanding Parental Alienation: Learning to Cope and Helping to Heal. Also see:
http://www.familyseparationclinic.co.uk
Notes and acknowledgements
Nick Child is a retired CAMHS psychiatrist then voluntary sector family therapist in Edinburgh. Raising the
profile of family therapy in the non-statutory sector coincided, in 2010, with meeting a remarkable client, now
colleague. No client should ever have to teach their therapist first in order to get help. Roy Mackay mailed a
textbook with his request to be seen. He helped Nick see and overcome his allergy to Parental Alienation. To
make up for his career long failure, they now work to raise awareness and reduce prejudice in the UK
although Nick has mostly indirect clinical experience with high conflict separations or alienation. This
overview was originally presented at the AFT London day event on the subject, October 2014. Colleagues in
the group for the systemic study of parental alienation (SSoPA) helped and presented at the event. More of
this story and of the presentations and discussion arising can be found on:
http://thealienationexperience.org.uk
and Nick’s own website:
http://www.forallthat.com > Children Resisting Contact